Prayer for the Day

by Revd Canon David White

24th August 2025 - Bartholomew the Apostle

Teach us, good Lord,
to serve you as you deserve:
to give and not to count the cost:
to fight and not to heed the wounds:
to toil and not to seek for rest:
to labour and not to ask for any reward:
save that of knowing that we do your will. Amen.

This prayer by Ignatius of Loyola (1491 – 1556) emphasises two important virtues and principles of the Christian faith – service and generosity. We follow in Jesus’ footsteps not by simply doing good deeds (if that were the case, even atheists would be following him). We follow Jesus by doing good deeds in a particular way, a way that is modelled after the lesson Jesus gave us in washing the disciples’ feet on the night before his crucifixion.

Ignatius was Spanish from the Basque region and was originally a soldier who later became a priest. With six companions he founded the religious order of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) the main purpose of which was to be missionary and teaching.

The prayer encapsulates his thinking and ideas. For him, to find God through service, we have to make ourselves vulnerable as Jesus did. We also have to be one who, in faith, offers ourselves to and for others. We offer our service without calculating the cost to us; we do it for the love of God, his creation and his people. Just as Jesus showed what it means to be a faithful servant of God and gave himself generously for the sake of others, so do we.